Substitute teachers will make more money in the Community R-VI school district the upcoming school year as the school board approved new pay at its May 21 meeting. 

The board also discussed the passage of Senate Bill 68, which would require schools to form new practices for restrictive cellphone usage during the school day.

Substitute pay will move from $100 to $125 per day and any substitute teacher who has a teaching certificate will get $140 a day, up from $125 daily, said Community R-VI Superintendent Chad Harter.

“We’re doing that largely because we want to be competitive with subs, but also because we’re going to be required to after House Bill 567 that mandated we have to be in compliance with minimum wage laws,” Harter said.

Regarding Senate 68, Harter said during his presentation that the bill’s passage will affect how the district conducts business. The bill was sent to Gov. Mike Kehoe for his signature.

“We had test run an elementary version of that this year with anticipation that we would move forward with some limitations on cellphones in middle school this year, but the state is going to press us to move a little quicker than even what we were planning on progressing in limiting cellphone usage in our school,” Harter said.

He said the district sent a communication to parents last week to let them know what the cellphone practice would look like and that the district would continue to communicate.

In other business, the board heard about reconstructing the internal roundabout that exists as a driveway that comes up to the elementary school.

“We know that we’re needing to do something to repatch that,” Harter said. “We’ve been taking a look for a few months now at asphalt/concrete to patching that or redoing that.”

That matter will be brought up again at the June meeting, Harter said, noting that when the district conducts the repair that it is performed “correctly and that we do it one time with something that lasts that our public can be proud of and that they see value in.”

The board tabled an agenda item on a district testing coordinator position. 

“We want to take a look at what specific impacts that we are wanting to make with that,” Harter said. “The testing coordinator position specifically lines up with what we have or desire to improve our workplace readiness. So in taking a look at that, we’re tabling that for a later time to look at to see exactly where we want that to pinpoint and to more specify what we’ve got for a job description on that.” 

Also at the meeting, the board moved the next board meeting to June 25 from June 18.

Among personnel moves, the board approved Jonathan Guilkey’s contract to teach upper-level math classes at the high school and hired Brenna Duncan to teach music from kindergarten through 12th grade.